Importance of Customer Analytics – Knowing the Who and Why

Customer Loyalty is Dead

Businesses
in almost every industry are facing heat from customers today who are more
clear-sighted and less loyal toward brands. Blame it on social media,
globalization, economic uncertainty, or product commoditization. But these
challenging trends have made customersfickle-minded and prone to opinion
influence.

The
bottom line is that companies need a fresh approach toward understanding what
their customers need, in order to acquire them and retain them.

No
prizes for guessing that the data you have is the key to unlocking the insights
into your customer that can make all the difference to your success.

What is the importance of customer analytics?

A Customers 2020 report says that customer experience will overtake product price and quality
as the critical differentiator for brands by 2020. Many believe thisis already
in motion.

Even
though organizations of all shapes and sizes have enough access to customer
data from their customer service operations, social media, and other offline
and online presences- they are yet to unlock this data and leverage it to its
fullest potential.

Challenges to Delivering Memorable Customer
Experiences

Businesses find it hard to maintain a
consistent brand presence across the increasing number of channels on which
customers interact and engage.

It’s a challenge for companies to
meet the increasing expectations for fast, proactive, predictive, and
personalized engagement.

Most importantly, brands struggle to
create new products, value, and services for customers when thinking about
digital transformation.

The key
to tackling these challenges is to become more data-driven as an organization.

This is
not about creating reports and displaying data in dashboards. This is about
integrating business intelligence into your data to drive decisions across the
board.

Defining the Customer

Since
customer expectations have always been a moving target, organizations struggle
to make their services, products, and interactions appealing to the customer.

Chasing
customer expectations in the ‘now’ is barely the solution. By the time you meet
their current needs, they will have begun demanding yet better.

Therefore,
you need to understand who our customers are and why they behave just as they
do. Clearly defining their ‘who’ and ‘why’ can give you significant insights
into their behavior, buying patterns, experience with your brand, and
motivations to look elsewhere or be with you.

Now, you
are empowered with data-driven insights to devise strategies to get new
customers and keep yourexisting ones.

Customer
analytics can be the backbone of your marketing. It integrates technologies
such as predictive modeling, data visualization, information segmentation, and
management.

Methods of Deriving Customer Data for Analytics

Surveys – Plain old surveys that collect and
analyze data from questions posed directly to the customer.

Build a base of loyal customers who
keep your business in shape and facilitate long-term growth.

Deepen the levels of customer
engagement by utilizing rich data to improve visibility into customer
activities such as billing, buying, returns, and investments.

Ensure cohesive experiences across
all company touch points by leveraging customer data to find out which
platforms they use the most and when.

McKinsey Global Institute maintains that data-driven organizations are 23 times more likely to
acquire new customers, 6 times more likely to retain them, and 19 times as
likely to be profitable as a consequence.

The key
is to eliminate guesswork and to make fact-based decisions. Data offered by
customer analytics is best utilized when organizations can use them to derive
real and actionable insights.
Like most strategic initiatives, the true value
from customer analytics also depends on buy-in from the top-level managers.
Assuming that all decisions regarding campaigns, strategies for
product/service, sales and marketing plans are taken by the top management, it’s
just smart to get their buy-in before beginning your customer journey analytics. On that
path, you will learn more about your customers and be able to form enduring
relationships with them that will stand the test of competitive pressures.